More than a dozen , states run by Progressives— including Washington, D. C., and some adjacent Maryland communities — allow noncitizens to ballot in some nearby elections. San Francisco certainly simply permits noncitizens to vote but , appointed one , to offer on its elections commission.
For improvements, against a backdrop of thousands of illegal workers streaming into the United States under the Biden-Harris management, bring new necessity to conversations over election dignity. Some Republicans fear that a common effort is underway to give noncitizens the complete benefits of citizenship, including the right to vote in all elections, on major of , benefits , now available to illegal aliens in some places, somewhat driver’s licenses, food stamps, government health care, and work visas.
Although Democrats note that noncitizens may not participate in federal , elections , and claim there is little evidence noncitizens are voting unlawfully, critics are unmollified.
The fight over noncitizen voting is only likely to get worse this year, according to a RealClearInvestigations analysis of proposed and enacted state and federal laws, as well as other reporting and research.
Unknown numbers of noncitizens have already cast ballots in the following states: Â , states across the country report that thousands of noncitizens have been found on voter rolls in the last ten years:
- Pennsylvania found 11, 000 registrants , suspected , of being noncitizens after becoming aware of a decades-old “glitch” in the state’s “motor voter” registration system in 2017. It , removed , 2, 500 individuals from the rolls, and it could not verify the citizenship status of the other 8, 700 registrants.
- Virginia has  , removed , over 11, 000 registrants from its rolls between 2014 and 2023 — and more than 6, 300 from January 2022 to July 2024 , alone , — upon learning that they had declared themselves noncitizens in other interactions with government, typically in transactions with the state’s department of motor vehicles.  , House Republicans , cited , a study showing that of nearly 1, 500 noncitizens the Commonwealth removed from rolls from May 2023 to February 2024, 23 percent had cast ballots since February 2019.
- New Jersey had some 616 self-reported noncitizens in 11 counties “engaged on some level with the statewide registration system”, 9 percent of whom cast ballots, according to a 2017 , survey , conducted by the Public Interest Legal Foundation.
- Boston, Massachusetts, officials , revealed , this year that the city had removed 70 noncitizens from the rolls, some 22 of whom had voted, the removals coming in response to disclosure requests from the Public Interest Legal Foundation.
- Ohio recently , ordered , the removal of 499 noncitizens from its voter rolls after removing some 137 other registrants back in , May.
- North Carolina identified more than 1, 400 registrants on state voter rolls who did not appear to be naturalized, in an , audit , conducted prior to the 2014 midterm election.  , Eighty-nine flagged individuals , appeared , at the polls to vote, and 24 had their registration challenged, 11 challenges were sustained or justified.
- Arizona , classifies , some 42, 000 people on its rolls as “federal-only” registrants as of July 1, 2024 — after they had failed to provide the proof of citizenship necessary to vote in state and local races.  , The state’s bifurcated voter rolls are the result of a 2013 , Supreme Court ruling , in which a 7-2 majority led by the late Justice Antonin Scalia ruled that federal voter registration requirements — of which documentary proof of citizenship is not one — preempted the state’s standards.  ,
Other , evidence , of noncitizen voting has been found in states from California to , Illinois.  ,
Republicans contend that examples like these expose flaws in the electoral registration and administration process, including the requirement for registrants to provide citizenship without providing it. These and other state-run system flaws make elections flimsy for ineligible noncitizen voters today.
Each side has its own research to back up its claims. Democrats cite a study conducted by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University that found that local election officials who were in charge of the tabulation of 23.5 million ballots during the 2016 presidential election had only identified 30 potential noncitizen voting incidents.
Republicans highlight a recent , study  , estimating that 10 percent to 27 percent of noncitizens are illegally registered to vote, and 5 percent to 13 percent will illegally vote in 2024 — a potentially massive number given the illegal alien portion of the , noncitizen population , alone numbers well , over 10 million. Election integrity advocates claim that states have n’t seen many noncitizen voting incidents because it’s obvious that authorities, including the Department of Justice, do n’t look for it.
” DOJ investigations of illegal voting are all but nonexistent”, Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, said in a recent floor debate concerning the SAVE ( Safeguard American Voter Eligibility )  , Act, a bill Lee and House colleague Chip Roy, R-Texas,  , introduced , to combat noncitizen voting.  , After the House passed the measure in July, Democrats blocked the legislation in the upper chamber, where it remains stalled.
Hans von Spakovsky, a former Department of Justice official who now works at the conservative Heritage Foundation, told Congress in May that” too many prosecutors refuse to enforce the law even when such illegal behavior is discovered by election officials or others.
Should election officials fail to prevent noncitizens from casting ballots on the front end, J. Christian Adams, a fellow former DOJ official and president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, told RCI, there is “almost nothing” the public or political parties can do on the back end to identify, challenge, and invalidate noncitizen votes prior to election certification.
Given the potential effects of tight races up and down ballots, Adams ‘ group has documented and documented myriad electoral races that have been decided by one vote or tied over the past two decades.
The prospect of noncitizen voting generally strikes some states as unfazed. For this article, RealClearInvestigations contacted authorities in the seven states comprising RealClearPolitics ‘ , top battlegrounds: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Two states, Michigan and Pennsylvania, did not respond to RCI’s inquiries. The five responsive states’ electoral authorities argued that the current law was sufficient to deter noncitizen voting, putting the emphasis on the fact that voting as a foreigner would be a serious offense punishable by severe sanctions.
If someone did elect as a noncitizen, they would have to knowingly and purposefully commit a class 6 felony, according to a spokesman for Arizona’s Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes in a statement. This would result in the revocation of their legal status in the USA and possible deportation. The spokesman said he hoped his statement, which pointed to the state’s voter challenge process and noted other procedures pertaining to citizenship, would” compel” RealClearInvestigations to” clear up]RCI’s ] notions and erroneous assumptions”.
Georgia touted its 2022 citizenship , audit , in correspondence with RCI, the first such review of the voter rolls for citizenship in state history, in which it found that 1, 634 people who attempted to register to vote were not verified by the SAVE program. All were in “pending citizenship” status within Georgia’s internal systems, and thus none had been allowed to vote. ” Due to the efficient procedures Georgia has in place, U.S. S citizenship at the time of registration, and we are confident that noncitizens in Georgia will be punished to the fullest by the law, according to Mike Hassinger, a spokesman for Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, RCI.
We have very few complaints about noncitizens casting ballots in elections, according to Public Information Director of the North Carolina Elections Board, Patrick Gannon, who told RCI.
He pointed to a 2016 , state audit , report and the handful of cases alleging noncitizen voting that the , bipartisan , State Board of Elections has referred to prosecutors , since 2017.
Similarly, Wisconsin Elections Commission Public Information Officer Riley Vetterkind , told RCI,” There is not evidence to support the idea that noncitizens are voting in Wisconsin in significant numbers”. The spokesperson for the state ‘s , bipartisan commission , cited , the , suspected-election-fraud-irregularities-or-violations-pursuant-wis” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>few , suspected-election-fraud-irregularities-or-violations-pursuant-wis” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>instances , of , suspected , election fraud, irregularities, or violations referred to district attorneys by municipal clerks that the state’s elections commission “has been made aware of”.
These messages of reassurance, however, at times come with notes of caution that underpin election integrity advocates ‘ concerns.
The process of keeping voter lists in each state is independent. Those processes vary widely in vigor, tempo, and transparency. They frequently depend on how many different types of sources of citizenship status can be used to identify ineligible voters. ” No state or federal law requires the WEC]Wisconsin Elections Commission] or clerks to verify a voter’s citizenship status beyond requiring the voter to certify that they are a U. S. citizen as a qualification for voter eligibility”, said Vetterkind.
Pennsylvania has  , asserted , that” the Commonwealth has no systematic program to identify and remove non-citizens from the voting rolls” . ,
The Keystone State and other states have both been the subject of litigation by The Public Interest Legal Foundation to gain an insight into the procedures used to maintain their registration lists. As for how states identify potential noncitizens, Gannon , said of North Carolina’s audit that “relying on state databases was wildly inaccurate for determining citizenship status” . ,
A specialized approach that other states use frequently is required that the election board regularly reconcile its registration list with lists provided by state courts of those excused from jury duty due to lack of citizenship.
Georgia emphasized its use of the Department of Homeland Security’s more robust SAVE , tool, which , provides “point in time immigration status” for those who have been issued a unique immigration identifier. ( This , Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements , tool is , distinct from the GOP-sponsored legislation with the same acronym. )
The majority of state officials who responded to RCI’s query emphasized that laws exist that permit third-party challenges to voter eligibility. But this is a measure requiring time, money, and effort. Spakovsky and Adams, two former justice department officials, wrote in the Daily Signal and the  that they disagreed with the  and that state audits and voter rolls should inspire confidence.
We do n’t really know how many aliens, whether here legally or illegally, are registering and voting because almost no state even makes attempts to verify that those who register to vote are U.S. citizens and because the federal government, including both the courts and the executive branch, have put up significant obstacles to such verification.
Rougher Weather Ahead
Whatever the extent of noncitizen registration and voting today,  , Election Integrity Network , leader Cleta Mitchell says conditions are building for a “perfect storm”. It will be caused by” the invasion of our country by millions of illegals” and a number of largely Democratic Party-directed efforts to enshrine voter registration and participation.
Mitchell and others, including The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project,  , have  , suggested , that significant numbers of noncitizens could wind up on the voting rolls under Biden administration  , Executive Order 14019,  , which directs every federal agency to register and mobilize voters.  ,
Officials in , Alabama , and , Mississippi , say that under the executive order, which RCI has previously , examined,  , authorities are already attempting to register noncitizens to vote. The Biden administration initiative calls on federal agencies to coordinate with , third-party groups , in pursuit of its objectives as well. Adams testified for the Republican majority in May before the House Administration Committee, claiming that “most often noncitizens are getting on the rolls through the motor voter registration process or , third-party registration drives.”
Regarding motor-voter registration, the , Only Citizens Vote Coalition , warns that “many states are now automatically registering people to vote at the time of coming into contact with the DMV unless the person ‘ opts out’ of registration” . ,
Advocates worry that tactics like same-day voter registration and the use of student IDs, which can be issued to foreigners, could result in noncitizens appearing on voter rolls and potentially voting.  ,
These problems are likely to only add to the concerns that campaign integrity advocates have about practices like mail-in voting and ballot harvesting, which have become commonplace since the 2020 election. Riley Vetterkind, a native of Wisconsin, told RCI that a more robust “level of citizenship tracking and verification” would almost certainly require legislative change.
With the SAVE Act, which was largely party-line, Congressional Republicans have attempted to accomplish this. Under the current registration system, applicants can attest their citizenship under the purview of the law by checking a box. House Speaker Mike Johnson , calls , this nothing more than an “honor system” that leaves “people who have already proven they have no regard or respect for our laws” undeterred.  ,
By requiring applicants to present proof of citizenship in person when registering to vote in federal elections, the SAVE Act would close this loophole. According to Adams, noncitizens frequently end up on the voter rolls through no fault of their own, exposing aliens who frequently ca n’t speak English to severe legal liability under the less stringent status quo.
Critics of the SAVE Act, echoing some states, believe those liabilities — including the threat of deportation, jail time, and other punishments — sufficiently curb noncitizen registration and voting.
As the Democratic minority’s witness in the May congressional hearing, New York University Brennan Center for Justice President Michael Waldman argued that” under current law, noncitizen voting in federal elections is illegal four times: it is both a state and federal crime to register to vote, and it is both a state and federal crime to vote in federal elections.”
The liberal think tank did not respond to RCI’s inquiries in relation to this story. Democrat Party leaders from , President Biden , on , down , also dismiss evidence of noncitizen voting, claiming it is virtually non-existent.
” Even the conservative CATO Institute has said that’ noncitizens do n’t illegally vote in detectable numbers,'” California Democrat Sen. Alex Padilla noted in a floor speech in response to Mike Lee, referencing a 2020 , blog post , from the libertarian think , tank.  ,
Democrats claim that potential voters are disenfranchised due to the bill’s documentary proof of citizenship requirements. They point to past , evidence , indicating that similar state laws in places like Kansas ended up preventing eligible registrants from voting. They also highlight , surveys , showing millions of Americans lack commonly used documents to prove citizenship, like a passport or birth certificate — two of a number of forms one could present to satisfy the SAVE Act’s requirements.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries , branded , the SAVE Act an “extreme MAGA Republican voter suppression bill”.
DHS’s ‘ Slow-Walking’
Registration requirements , and , voter ID , laws, which vary by state, do not necessarily prevent ineligible individuals from voting since noncitizens— and, in some cases, illegal aliens — can obtain relevant forms of identification. As the Republican governor of Virginia Glenn Youngkin , highlighted , in a recent executive order, only three states — his included — require even a full Social Security number to register to vote.
In addition, the SAVE Act would require states to explicitly strengthen their registration list maintenance procedures to include cross-referencing their lists with more comprehensive data sources in order to identify and remove noncitizens from voter rolls.
Only five states currently have access to one resource referenced in the bill, the Department of Homeland Security ‘s , SAVE , tool.  , A House Administration Committee , report , indicates that DHS is not granting the same level of access to all states and may be” slow-walking” requests to use it.  ,
‘ Significant Inaccuracies’ in the Federal Database
When questioned about this assertion, a spokesman for the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service responded to RCI by saying that” There is an established process that agencies must go through and meet the eligibility requirements that agencies must meet to complete SAVE registration.”
” USCIS is committed to working with agencies seeking access to SAVE and processing registration requests as efficiently as possible”, the spokesman added while referring a reporter to , several , resources , on the USCIS website.
Still, these databases are not seen by all as a panacea. Our agency discovered significant errors in the data we received, according to North Carolina’s Patrick Gannon, who spoke to RCI  in an email. ” There is no comprehensive, accurate, or up-to-date database of U. S. citizens that election administrators could use for verification purposes”.
Democrats contend that the more stringent requirements for Republicans ‘ voter registration list maintenance could result in purged eligible voters.  , Calling , the SAVE Act “nothing other than a solution in search of a problem”, Sen. Padilla blocked the bill in the upper chamber.
With a September  , spending fight , looming in Congress, the House Freedom Caucus is seeking to force the issue by , calling , on leadership to attach the SAVE Act to any stopgap spending solution — a plan Sen. Lee has also , endorsed.
In the meantime, campaigners for election integrity like the Only Citizens Vote Coalition are calling for state-level model legislation to combat noncitizen voting. The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project has been working to identify vulnerabilities in extant voter registration systems and potential legal violations,  , publicize , them, and , press , lawmakers to enforce relevant laws to combat noncitizen voting.
The conservative group for public interest law, America First Legal, recently instructed all 50 states to send them letters andnbsps to remind them that states can and should submit requests to the DHS asking for the citizenship status of registered voters.
America First Legal has also sent , demand letters , to all 15 Arizona county recorders, compelling them to verify the citizenship of all “federal-only” voters, including through making citizenship requests of DHS — or face legal action.
The Maricopa County Recorder was sued on August 5 by America First Legal for his alleged failure to respond to the group’s demand letter. Three days later, the Republican National Committee , filed , an emergency application at the Supreme Court in a bid to compel Arizona to enforce its proof of citizenship requirements for the 2024 presidential election.
Warning: Extended Lawfare Ahead
These forces on the right are likely to battle it out with the left for many years to come.  ,
House Democrats, today in the slim minority, have voted to continue , apportioning , congressional seats based on total population rather than total citizens in a given jurisdiction, to , protect , noncitizen voting rights in Washington, D. C., and, in , legislation , aimed at providing certain aliens with a path to permanent resident status, to permit authorities to waive unlawful voting as grounds for deeming noncitizens , inadmissible. During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in March, leftists and witnesses were unable or unwilling to support the requirement that only citizens be able to cast ballots in federal elections.
As a presidential candidate in 2020, Vice President Kamala Harris , signaled , her , support , for providing government health care to illegal aliens. Her presumed running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz,  , signed , legislation providing benefits for illegal aliens, including state-funded health care, driver’s licenses, and free college tuition.
Those on the left see voting rights, like the expansion of other benefits to noncitizens, as a matter of fairness.
” Immigrants pay taxes, they use city services, their kids go to our public schools. They are part of our community. And they deserve a say in local government”, New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson , said , in defending a bill that has been ruled unconstitutional that would have allowed an estimated 800, 000 noncitizens to vote in local elections.
The Trump-Vance campaign, by contrast, has called for mass deportation of the illegal alien population ( to which Democrats increasingly wish to extend rights and benefits ), among , other immigration measures , the Republicans say aim to protect and support Americans. Red states are increasingly passing amendments enforcing local governments from allowing noncitizens to vote, with Louisiana and Ohio approving these constitutional changes in 2022 in contrast to the growing coterie of blue-state jurisdictions that support noncitizen voting. Eight more states have citizenship-related ballot measures in the 2024 election.
This article is republished from RealClearInvestigations, with permission.
Ben Weingarten is editor at large for RealClearInvestigations. He is a senior contributor to The Federalist, columnist at Newsweek, and a contributor to the New York Post and Epoch Times, among other publications. Subscribe to his newsletter at weingarten. substack .com, and follow him on Twitter: @bhweingarten.
